The Collected Verse of Robert Service
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Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service (1874-1958) was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, and came to Canada in 1895, eventually ending up in Yukon Territory in 1904, five years after the Klondike Gold Rush. His many books include the poetry collection The Songs of a Sourdough, the novel The Trail of '98, and the autobiography Ploughman of the Moon. Service later moved to France, where he died.
Read more from Robert W. Service
Best Tales of the Yukon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Songs of a Sourdough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ballads of a Bohemian Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRhymes of a Red Cross Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBallads of a Cheechako Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Trail of '98: A Northland Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRhymes of a Rolling Stone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBallads of a Cheechako Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shooting of Dan McGrew, A Novel. Based on the Famous Poem of Robert Service Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongs of a Sourdough Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongs of a Sourdough Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongs of a Sourdough - Poetry Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest Tales of the Yukon: A Book of Poems About Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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The Collected Verse of Robert Service - Robert W. Service
THE COLLECTED VERSE OF ROBERT SERVICE
By ROBERT SERVICE
The Collected Verse of Robert Service
By Robert Service
Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6699-2
eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6700-5
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Cover Image: a detail of a poster advertising Heart of the Klondike
by Scott Marble, 1897 (colour litho) / American School, (19th century) / The Stapleton Collection / Bridgeman Images.
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CONTENTS
SONGS OF A SOURDOUGH
THE LAW OF THE YUKON
THE PARSON’S SON
THE SPELL OF THE YUKON
THE CALL OF THE WILD
THE LONE TRAIL
THE HEART OF THE SOURDOUGH
THE THREE VOICES
THE PINES
THE HARPY
THE LURE OF LITTLE VOICES
THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE
GRIN
THE SHOOTING OF DAN McGREW
THE CREMATION OF SAM McGEE
MY MADONNA
UNFORGOTTEN
THE RECKONING
QUATRAINS
THE MEN THAT DON’T FIT IN
MUSIC IN THE BUSH
THE RHYME OF THE REMITTANCE MAN
THE LOW-DOWN WHITE
THE LITTLE OLD LOG CABIN
THE YOUNGER SON
THE MARCH OF THE DEAD
FIGHTING MAC
THE WOMAN AND THE ANGEL
THE RHYME OF THE RESTLESS ONES
NEW YEAR’S EVE
COMFORT
PREMONITION
THE TRAMPS
L’ENVOI
BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO
TO THE MAN OF THE HIGH NORTH
MEN OF THE HIGH NORTH
THE BALLAD OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
THE BALLAD OF THE BLACK FOX SKIN
THE BALLAD OF PIOUS PETE
THE BALLAD OF BLASPHEMOUS BILL
THE BALLAD OF ONE-EYED MIKE
THE BALLAD OF THE BRAND
THE BALLAD OF HARD-LUCK HENRY
THE MAN FROM ELDORADO
MY FRIENDS
THE PROSPECTOR
THE BLACK SHEEP
THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
THE WOOD-CUTTER
THE SONG OF THE MOUTH-ORGAN
THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT
THE BALLAD OF GUM-BOOT BEN
CLANCY OF THE MOUNTED POLICE
LOST
L’ENVOI
RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE
PRELUDE
A ROLLING STONE
THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
THE GRAMAPHONE AT FOND-DU-LAC
THE LAND OF BEYOND
SUNSHINE
THE IDEALIST
ATHABASKA DICK
CHEER
THE RETURN
THE JUNIOR GOD
THE NOSTOMANIAC
AMBITION
TO SUNNYDALE
THE BLIND AND THE DEAD
THE ATAVIST
THE SCEPTIC
THE ROVER
BARB-WIRE BILL
?
JUST THINK!
THE LUNGER
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE LAKE
THE HEADLINER AND THE BREADLINER
DEATH IN THE ARCTIC
DREAMS ARE BEST
THE QUITTER
THE COW-JUICE CURE
WHILE THE BANNOCK BAKES
THE LOST MASTER
LITTLE MOCCASINS
THE WANDERLUST
THE TRAPPER’S CHRISTMAS EVE
THE WORLD’S ALL RIGHT
THE BALDNESS OF CHEWED-EAR
THE MOTHER
THE DREAMER
AT THIRTY-FIVE
THE SQUAW MAN
HOME AND LOVE
I’M SCARED OF IT ALL
A SONG OF SUCCESS
THE SONG OF THE CAMP-FIRE
HER LETTER
THE MAN WHO KNEW
THE LOGGER
THE PASSING OF THE YEAR
THE GHOSTS
GOOD-BYE, LITTLE CABIN
HEART O’ THE NORTH
THE SCRIBE’S PRAYER
RHYMES OF A RED CROSS MAN
FOREWORD
THE CALL
THE FOOL
THE VOLUNTEER
THE CONVALESCENT
THE MAN FROM ATHABASKA
THE RED RETREAT
THE HAGGIS OF PRIVATE MCPHEE
THE LARK
THE ODYSSEY OF ’ERBERT ’IGGINS
A SONG OF WINTER WEATHER
TIPPERARY DAYS
FLEURETTE
FUNK
OUR HERO
MY MATE
MILKING TIME
YOUNG FELLOW MY LAD
A SONG OF THE SANDBAGS
ON THE WIRE
BILL’S GRAVE
JEAN DESPREZ
GOING HOME
COCOTTE
MY BAY’NIT
CARRY ON!
OVER THE PARAPET
THE BALLAD OF SOULFUL SAM
ONLY A BOCHE
PILGRIMS
MY PRISONER
TRI-COLOUR
A POT OF TEA
THE REVELATION
GRAND-PÈRE
SON
THE BLACK DUDEEN
THE LITTLE PIOU-PIOU
BILL THE BOMBER
THE WHISTLE OF SANDY MCGRAW
THE STRETCHER-BEARER
WOUNDED
FAITH
THE COWARD
MISSIS MORIARTY’S BOY
MY FOE
MY JOB
THE SONG OF THE PACIFIST
THE TWINS
THE SONG OF THE SOLDIER-BORN
AFTERNOON TEA
THE MOURNERS
L’ENVOI
BALLADS OF A BOHEMIAN
PRELUDE
BOOK ONE. SPRING
MY GARRET
JULOT THE APACHE
L’ESCARGOT D’OR
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK
NOCTAMBULE
INSOMNIA
MOON SONG
THE SEWING-GIRL
LUCILLE
ON THE BOULEVARD
FACILITY
GOLDEN DAYS
THE JOY OF LITTLE THINGS
THE ABSINTHE DRINKERS
BOOK TWO. EARLY SUMMER
THE RELEASE
THE WEE SHOP
THE PHILISTINE AND THE BOHEMIAN
THE BOHEMIAN DREAMS
A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY
THE PENCIL SELLER
FI-FI IN BED
GODS IN THE GUTTER
THE DEATH OF MARIE TORO
THE BOHEMIAN
THE AUCTION SALE
THE JOY OF BEING POOR
MY NEIGHBORS
BOOK THREE. LATE SUMMER
THE PHILANDERER
THE PETIT VIEUX
MY MASTERPIECE
MY BOOK
MY HOUR
A SONG OF SIXTY-FIVE
TEDDY BEAR
THE OUTLAW
THE WALKERS
POOR PETER
THE WISTFUL ONE
IF YOU HAD A FRIEND
THE CONTENTED MAN
THE SPIRIT OF THE UNBORN BABE
FINISTÈRE
OLD DAVID SMAIL
THE WONDERER
OH, IT IS GOOD
I HAVE SOME FRIENDS
THE QUEST
THE COMFORTER
THE OTHER ONE
CATASTROPHE
BOOK FOUR. WINTER
PRISCILLA
A CASUALTY
THE BLOOD-RED FOURRAGÈRE
JIM
KELLY OF THE LEGION
THE THREE TOMMIES
THE TWA JOCKS
HIS BOYS
THE BOOBY-TRAP
BONEHEAD BILL
MICHAEL
THE WIFE
VICTORY STUFF
WAS IT YOU?
LES GRANDS MUTILES
THE SIGHTLESS MAN
THE LEGLESS MAN
THE FACELESS MAN
L’ENVOI
SONGS OF A SOURDOUGH
To
C. M.
The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn,
As still as death, as stern as fate.
The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.
So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune,
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.
O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express—
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart’s abysmal loneliness.
THE LAW OF THE YUKON
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
But the others—the misfits, the failures—I trample under my feet.
Dissolute, damned, and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters—Go! take back your spawn again.
"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway;
From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day;
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come:
Till he swept like a turbid torrent, and after him swept—the scum.
The pallid pimp of the dead-line, the enervate of the pen,
One by one I weeded them out, for all that I sought was—Men.
One by one I dismayed them, frighting them sore with my glooms;
One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms. Drowned them like rats in my rivers, starved them like curs on my plains,
Rotted the flesh that was left them, poisoned the blood in their veins;
Burst with my winter upon them, searing forever their sight,
Lashed them with fungus-white faces, whimpering wild in the night;
Staggering blind through the storm-whirl, stumbling mad through the snow,
Frozen stiff in the ice pack, brittle and bent like a bow;
Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight,
Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white;
Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair,
Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer;
Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam;
Writing a cheque for a million, drivelling feebly of home;
Lost like a louse in the burning ... or else in tented town
Seeking a drunkard’s solace, sinking and sinking down;
Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world,
Lost ’mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled;
In the camp at the bend of the river, with its dozen saloons aglare,
Its gambling dens a-riot, its gramophones all a-blare;
Crimped with the crimes of a city, sin-ridden and bridled with lies,
In the hush of my mountained vastness, in the flush of my midnight skies.
Plague-spots, yet tools of my purpose, so natheless I suffer them thrive,
Crushing my Weak in their clutches, that only my Strong may survive.
"But the others, the men of my mettle, the men who would ’stablish my fame,
Unto its ultimate issue, winning me honour, not shame;
Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go,
Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow;
Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks,
Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks.
I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.
Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst,
Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first;
Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn,
Feeling my womb o’er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn.
Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,
And I wait for the men who will win me—and I will not be won in a day;
And I will not be won by weaklings, subtile, suave, and mild,
But by men with the hearts of vikings, and the simple faith of a child;
Desperate, strong, and resistless, unthrottled by fear or defeat,
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat.
"Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and wearily wise,
With the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet, passionless eyes;
Dreaming alone of a people, dreaming alone of a day,
When men shall not rape my riches, and curse me and go away;
Making a bawd of my bounty, fouling the hand that gave—
Till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path and I stamp them into a grave. Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good,
Of children born in my borders, of radiant motherhood;
Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled,
As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world."
This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thrive;
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.
Dissolute, damned, and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
This is the Will of the Yukon,—Lo! how she makes it plain!
THE PARSON’S SON
This is the song of the parson’s son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone, And it’s sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan.
"I’m one of the Arctic brotherhood, I’m an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first—O God! how I’ve cursed this Yukon—but still I’m here.
I’ve sweated athirst in its summer heat, I’ve frozen and starved in its cold;
I’ve followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I’ve toiled and moiled for its gold.
"Look at my eyes—been snow-blind twice; look where my foot’s half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil’s land, where I’ve played and I’ve lost the game,
A broken wreck with a craze for ‘hooch,’ and never a cent to my name.
"This mining is only a gamble, the worst is as good as the best;
I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest;
With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald—O God! but it’s hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I’ve squandered on cards and women and drink.
"In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around,
Nor dreamt by our lonely camp-fires of the wealth that lay under the ground.
We traded in skins and whiskey, and I’ve often slept under the shade
Of that lone birch-tree on Bonanza, where the first big find was made.
"We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw,
And we lived such a wild, free, fearless life beyond the pale of the law;
Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man,
And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.
"Oh, those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide!
(If God made me in His likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women, well—
No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell.
"Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend.
I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end.
It put me queer, and for near a year I never drew sober breath,
Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a claim staked out on death.
"Twenty years in the Yukon, struggling along its creeks;
Roaming its giant valleys, scaling its god-like peaks;
Bathed in its fiery sunsets, fighting its fiendish cold,
Twenty years in the Yukon ... twenty years—and I’m old.
"Old and weak, but no matter, there’s ‘hooch’ in the bottle still.
I’ll hitch up the dogs to-morrow, and mush down the trail to Bill.
It’s so long dark, and I’m lonesome—I’ll just lay down on the bed,
To-morrow I’ll go ... to-morrow ... I guess I’ll play on the red.
"... Come, Kit, your pony is saddled. I’m waiting, dear, in the court ...
... Minnie, you devil, I’ll kill you if you skip with that flossy sport ...
... How much does it go to the pan, Bill?... play up, School, and play the game ...
... Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name ..."
This was the song of the parson’s son, as he lay in his bunk alone,
Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in, and his blue lips ceased to moan,
And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone.
THE SPELL OF THE YUKON
I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it,
I hurled my youth into the grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it—
Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it, \
And somehow the gold isn’t all.
No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it,
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe: but there’s some as would trade it
For no land on earth—and I’m one.
You come to get rich (damned good reason),
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it’s been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.
I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.
The summer—no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
O God! how I’m stuck on it all.
The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I’ve bade ’em good-bye—but I can’t.
There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.
They’re making my money diminish;
I’m sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish
I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite—
So me for the Yukon once more.
There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting,
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.
THE CALL OF THE WILD
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sage-brush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert’s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o’er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa?
Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the wild—it’s calling you.
Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig a-quiver? (Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the wild—it’s wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved, and triumphed grovelled, down, yet grasped at glory, Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
Done things
just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendours, heard the text that nature renders?
(You’ll never hear it in the family pew.)
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things—
Then listen to the wild—it’s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you’re a credit to their teaching—
But can’t you hear the wild?—it’s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling ... let us go.
THE LONE TRAIL
Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-bye;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.
The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried;
You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;
And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan,
Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.
And somehow you’re sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs,
And you seek the risk of the by-way, and you reck not where it leads.
And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth,
And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth.
And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire,
And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire.
And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows,
And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes. And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones,
And your flesh dints in like putty, and you spit out your teeth like stones.
And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea,
And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily.
And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees.
Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain;
By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you’re fain.
By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.
Bid good-bye to sweetheart, bid good-bye to friend;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.
Tarry not, and fear not, chosen of the true;
Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you.
THE HEART OF THE SOURDOUGH
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon;
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-gutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June:
There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the Silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber, and rose:
There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun—
I’ve packed my kit and I’m going, boys, ere another day is done.
I knew it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings;
It’s the olden lure, it’s the golden lure, it’s the lure of the timeless things;
And to-night, O God of the trails untrod, how it whines in my heart-strings!
I’m sick to death of your well-groomed gods, your make-believe and your show;
I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shake-down in the snow,
A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another bout with the foe;
With the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the wild that would crush and rend;
I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend;
Shoulder to shoulder we’ve fought it out—yet the Wild must win in the end.
I have flouted the Wild. I have followed its lure, fearless, familiar, alone;
By all that the battle means and makes I claim that land for mine own;
Yet the Wild must win, and a day will come when I shall be overthrown.
Then when as wolf-dogs fight we’ve fought, the lean wolf-land and I;
Fought and bled till the snows are red under the reeling sky;
Even as lean wolf-dog goes down will I go down and die.
THE THREE VOICES
The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
The waves tell of ocean spaces,
Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
Of desolate shores they lave;
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave.
The wind is a mighty roamer;
He bids me keep me free,
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
Hardy and pure as he;
Cling with my love to nature
As a child to the mother-knee.
But the stars throng out in their glory,
And they sing of the God in man;
They sing of the mighty Master,
Of the loom His fingers span;
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan.
Here by the camp-fire’s flicker,
Deep in my blanket curled,
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,
And the wind and the wave are silent,
And world is singing to world.
THE PINES
We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The grey moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.
On the flanks of the storm-gored ridges are our black battalions massed;
We surge in a host to the sullen coast, and we sing in the ocean blast;
From empire of sea to empire of snow we grip our empire fast.
To the niggard lands were we driven; ’twixt desert and foe are we penned.
To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend;
Ours till the world be riven in the crash of the utter end.
Ours from the bleak beginning, through the æons of death-like sleep;
Ours from the shock when the naked rock was hurled from the hissing deep;
Ours through the twilight ages of weary glacier-creep.
Wind of the East, wind of the West, wandering to and fro,
Chant your songs in our topmost boughs, that the sons of men may know
The peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be last to go!
We pillar the halls of perfumed gloom; we plume where the eagles soar;
The North-wind swoops from the brooding Pole, and our ancients crash and roar; But where one falls from the crumbling walls shoots up a hardy score.
We spring from the gloom of the canyon’s womb; in the valley’s lap we lie;
From the white foam-fringe where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like a golden eye,—
Gain to the verge of the hog-back ridge where the vision ranges free:
Pines and pines and the shadow of pines as far as the eye can see;
A steadfast legion of stalwart knights in dominant empery.
Sun, moon and stars, give answer; shall we not staunchly stand
Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand,
Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last lone land!
THE HARPY
There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she;
She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three;
And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.
There is no hope for such as I, on earth nor yet in Heaven;
Unloved I live, unloved I die, unpitied, unforgiven;
A loathèd jade I ply my trade, unhallowed and unshriven.
I paint my cheeks, for they are white, and cheeks of chalk men hate;
Mine eyes with wine I make to shine, that men may seek and sate;
With overhead a lamp of red I sit me down and wait.
Until they come, the nightly scum, with drunken eyes aflame;
Your sweethearts, sons, ye scornful ones—’tis I who know their shame;
The gods ye see are brutes to me—and so I play my game.
For life is not the thing we thought, and not the thing we plan;
And woman in a bitter world must do the best she can;
Must yield the stroke, and bear the yoke, and serve the will of man;
Must serve his need and ever feed the flame of his desire;
Though be she loved for love alone, or be she loved for hire;
For every man since life began is tainted with the mire.
And though you know he love you so, and set you on love’s throne,
Yet let your eyes but mock his sighs, and let your heart be stone,
Lest you be left (as I was left) attainted and alone.
From love’s close kiss to hell’s abyss is one sheer flight, I trow;
And wedding-ring and bridal bell are will-o’-wisps of woe;
And ’tis not wise to love too well, and this all women know.
Wherefore, the wolf-pack having gorged upon the lamb, their prey,
With siren smile and serpent guile I make the wolf-pack pay;
With velvet paws and flensing claws, a tigress roused to slay.
One who in youth sought truest truth, and found a devil’s lies;
A symbol of the sin of man, a human sacrifice:
Yet shall I blame on man the shame? Could it be otherwise?
Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride?
The Maker marred, and evil-starred I drift upon His tide;
And He alone shall judge His own, so I His judgment bide.
Fate has written a tragedy; its name is "The Human Heart."
The theatre is the House of Life, Woman the mummer’s part:
The Devil enters the prompter’s box and the play is ready to start.
THE LURE OF LITTLE VOICES
There’s a cry from out the Loneliness—Oh, listen, Honey, listen!
Do you hear it, do you fear it, you’re a-holding of me so?
You’re a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten—
Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?
All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they’re pleading, praying,
On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain;
Night and day they never leave me—do you know what they are saying?
He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again.
Yes, they’re wanting me, they’re haunting me, the awful lonely places;
They’re whining and they’re whimpering as if each had a soul;
They’re calling from the wilderness, the vast and god-like spaces,
The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.
They miss my little camp-fires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming
In the womb of desolation where was never man before;
As comradeless I sought them, lion-hearted, loving, dreaming;
And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore.
And now they’re all a-crying, and it’s no use me denying:
The spell of them is on me and I’m helpless as a child;
My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them sleeping, waking;
It’s the Lure of Little Voices, it’s the mandate of the Wild.
I’m afraid to tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving;
But softly in the sleep-time from your love I’ll steal away.
Oh, it’s cruel, dearie, cruel, and it’s God knows how I’m grieving;
But His Loneliness is calling and He knows I must obey.
THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE
When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
I hope that it won’t be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
And I hope that it won’t be heaven, with some of the parsons I’ve met—
All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.
Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;
Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands—
Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;
I’ve done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.
I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;
Threescore years of labour—Thine be the long day’s work.
And now, Big Master, I’m broken and bent and twisted and scarred,
But I’ve held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard.
Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I’ve played the fool—
Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil’s tool.
I was just like a child with money: I flung it away with a curse,
Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot’s purse,
Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,
I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.
Everything hard but headwork (I’d no more brains than a kid),
A brute with brute strength to labour, doing as I was bid;
Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life;
Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.
A brute with brute strength to labour, and they were so far above—
Yet I’d gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.
I with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild—
Yet how I’d ha’ treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child.
Well, ’tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude;
But I’ve lived my life as I found it, and I’ve done my best to be good;
I, the primitive toiler, half naked, and grimed to the eyes,
Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes,
Hurling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams;
Down in the ditch building o’er me palaces fairer than dreams;
Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,
Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.
Master, I’ve filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
And the long, long shift is over ... Master, I’ve earned it—Rest.
GRIN
If you’re up against a bruiser and you’re getting knocked about—
Grin.
If you’re feeling pretty groggy, and you’re licked beyond a doubt—
Grin.
Don’t let him see you’re funking, let him know with every clout,
Though your face is battered to a pulp, your blooming heart is stout;
Just stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out—
And grin.
This life’s a bally battle, and the same advice holds true,
Of grin.
If you’re up against it badly, then it’s only one on you,
So grin.
If the future’s black as thunder, don’t let people see you’re blue;
Just cultivate a cast-iron smile of joy the whole day through;
If they call you Little Sunshine,
wish that they’d no troubles, too—
You may—grin.
Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough,